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“Teenagers,” sighed Maglor. “They think they know everything. You give them an inch, they swim all over you. But sire, you know Elros. Always flipping from one fascination to another. This too shall pass, the tide will turn.”
“Normally, I might agree with you,” said King Ulmo, his broad chest rippling in the radiance of the lamps that lit the halls of Ulmonen. “Yet as we have all seen, the mer-peredhil can be quite unpredictable. You’ve heard the tale of Krillúthien?”
Maglor lowered his eye-stalks. Of course, everyone knew about the princess with the most beautiful voice, who had fallen in love with a human, traded her tail for legs, and changed the course of history. Her story had spread far beyond the kingdom of Floundoriath, where King Thingoldfish ruled alongside Queen Melianchovy.
“You understand why I worry,” said Ulmo.
“Perhaps he can made to see reason, before it goes so far,” said Maglor. “Someone must bring him to the light.”
“Someone with great rhetorical skill, perhaps,” said King Ulmo.
“The greatest!”
“Someone who is able to speak his language, in a mode he can fathom.”
“It’s not easy to get a stubborn teenager to listen to something he doesn’t want to hear.”
“Yes,” said Ulmo, with a note of decisiveness. “I think I know just the crustacean for the job. ”
“In fact,” continued Maglor, “just ask my mother, after she had eaten most of my brothers, she told me—wait. What did you say?”
“You heard me,” said King Ulmo. “I have all the faith in the sea that you can take care of it. And don’t come back until it’s done.”
Maglor scuttled away.
“I just don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.”
Inwardly, Maglor sighed. Elros might be a mer-peredhel. But he was such a Noldo. “Craft isn’t everything. Don’t you remember what happened to your great-grandfather Oystergon? He loved too greatly the works of his shells.”
“That won’t happen to me. Come, let me show you my collection.”
“Where are we going? Oh, no. You wouldn’t dare—not the swan-ship!”
But Elros had already dived into the wreckage of the ancient, barnacle-encrusted ship. Maglor nervously followed him within.
Elros had been busy. The inside of the ruined ship was like a museum, lined with strange treasures of mysterious make. Maglor saw a ring in the shape of two serpents with emerald eyes, one devouring and the other supporting a crown of golden flowers; a great grey steel helm with a visor, embossed and embellished with gold and graven runes of victory, a gilded image of a dragon upon its crest; a sword of dwarven steel, hilted with bright gold and damascened in gold and silver. A simple ring of plain gold sat on a shelf. It was clearly unimportant.
From another shelf, a flash of silver-gold light caught Maglor’s eye. “Hey, what do you have there?” Maglor asked.
Elros covered the object, whatever it was, with a shroud of woven seaweed and stuffed it into a purse. “I’ll tell you later. Look at these treasures! Can’t you see how wonderful the surface world is? Oh, how I long to see more. Someday, I will join the humans above.”
It was worse than Maglor thought. Elros was already smitten.
Well, he still had to try. “You see, Elros,” began Maglor, “the human world, it’s a mess.”
Elros rolled his eyes. “What would you know about it? You’ve never been to the surface. I have. I’ve seen wonders you can only imagine. A great, wide world awaits.”
“Elros! You can’t go up there. Do you know what the humans might do if they catch you?”
“You’re all so prejudiced. You forget, I am part-human, too. They can’t all be so bad, some must be Faithful and true.”
Maglor changed tactics. “But everyone you’ve ever known and loved is here, under the sea. What about Gill-galad? My boy, what about Eelrond?”
Elros looked guilty for a long moment. Then he seemed to resolve something within himself and shook his head, his hair swirling all around. “They will understand. Maybe they’ll come with me,” he said uncertainly.
“This is all normal youthful wanderlust,” said Maglor. “My father had it, too. I’ll tell you what, we shall go on a trip. We can visit Tirion upon Túna. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The more Maglor tried to persuade him, the more obstinately Elros resisted. Maglor even broke into spontaneous song, gathering an orchestra of deep-sea creatures, many fishes, mollusks, and echinoderms like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, a sound of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the music and the echo of the Music filled the swan-ship and the ocean beyond with a sea of triumphant sound—
But when the symphony reached its grand finale, a final, exultant chord, Maglor turned, smug as a smelt, ready for Elros’s capitulation—
And saw to his dismay the boy had disappeared.
Who was Maglor to tell him what to do, anyway?
Elros knew the truth. In his heart, he had always known.
He was not made for life under the sea. He was born to walk beneath the Sun, to feel the sand beneath his feet. (Whatever feet felt like.)
Maglor meant well, but a crab could never understand. Even Eelrond, with whom Elros had shared an egg, could not grasp why Elros had never felt that the ocean was his true home. No, Elros’s loved ones were unable to help him. Not in this.
There was, however, someone whose ancient magic might—just might—be what Elros needed. Someone who was known to bargain.
And Elros knew just the treasure the witch would find most irresistible.
He clutched his purse close. Though the object inside felt light in the water, its symbolic weight pressed heavy against his chest. Shadows closed around him as he swam deeper, deeper, deeper into the darkest places of the ocean. His heart beat fast and hard within his breast. There in the blackness, he came upon a cave.
Elros squared his shoulders. He straightened his tail. He reached inside his purse and removed the golden carcanet, its chief gem gleaming with hallowed inner fire. He swam as close as he dared to the entrance of the cave, and there, in offering, he extended the Nauglamír.
The crystalline light reflected upon eight great black eyes, gazing upon him with bottomless hunger.